I hope a commenter on another red pill blog I follow won’t mind me posting this, but I wanted to share a case study on a successful marriage based on the many things she’s shared about her relationship that I think are ideas that could help a lot of women build happy and successful marriages.

Please note all of this is based on my observations and what I have read in her posts so I could be getting some of this wrong and if so Liz I apologize in advance and I hope you will feel free to either elaborate on this post or let me know if you would like me to make any corrections.

Liz is in her early 40s and has been married to her hubby for a little over 20 years. They have several sons who are pre-teen to early teen aged. She and her husband met in college where they were both studying engineering. They had a short courtship that began when he asked her to start meeting him for study dates. Soon he made his romantic interest known and they dated for a short time before getting engaged and then married within a few months.

Liz says she was not raised to be a wife and mother and was encouraged by her parents, especially her mother, to put her education and career first like many girls of her generation. She also says she was not raised in a traditional or conservative religious home. Despite this, I find it very interesting that Liz seems to have taken a different path than many women of her generation, a road less traveled. Many times I have thought she had a solid inner wisdom from an early age that has helped her do different and build a happy successful marriage and family.

Her husband joined the military after college and spent his career there moving up the ranks as an officer. They moved many times. Liz decided to forgo finishing her engineering degree in favor of getting married and supporting her husband’s career. As they moved around, she took classes and completed her nursing degree. She has both worked full time and been a full time stay at home mom at different points in her marriage based on what she and her husband decided was best for their family goals at the time.

She reports her home is the home all of the kids want to hang out at and often has her sons friends over as weekend guests. Her kids would rather be at home than be at their friend’s home and Liz likes and encourages this so she can keep an eye on her boys and his friends and knows what they are up to. Their home is boisterous and fun and loud and she encourages her boys to be boys.

In fact, she’s said she was first drawn to the manosphere and red pill thinking out of concerns for her son’s futures and wanting to do what she could to advocate that schools, government, and society at large take the needs of men and boys into account just as they have the needs of women and girls.

As a military wife of an officer, Liz also frequently entertains her husband’s bosses and co-workers. She seems to enjoy supporting her husband and his career and doing all she can to help him look good and advance. She sees his career as a team effort, his status is “their” status, not something that takes away from her career or her accomplishments or status. She seems to happily take this supporting role behind the scenes and I have never sensed she has any bitterness about putting her husbands career before her own.

After 20 years of marriage, Liz reports being madly, truly, and deeply in love with her husband. Based on her posts they seem to have an active love life, and physical attraction is very high even after many years. Liz reports her husband is very attractive and that many women flirt with him openly. Liz does not seem to be bothered by this, but rather is proud of her hottie man.

Liz is physically active and works out regularly. She watches her weight, eats well, and cares about her appearance. She takes care of her skin and does her best to prevent aging. Liz is a hottie in her own right, something she does to both feel good about herself and to keep her husband’s attraction to her strong. Liz seems confident and vibrant and again she doesn’t seem to resent going to the effort to look good for her guy. She seems instead to enjoy knowing that her hot husband who other women would, in her own words, line up at her funeral to marry, only has eyes for her and she is more than willing to put in effort to keep it that way.

Liz once reported that she believed one secret to a happy marriage was having a short memory, approaching each day together as a new one. She reports they have had hard times in their marriage, and hurts have been had on both sides as will happen in marriage, but she doesn’t dwell on these past issues or hold onto them or bring them up over and over. She leaves the past in the past and focuses on the present and the future.

Liz and her husband seem to have built a solid financial foundation as well, and because they have managed their money carefully even in lean times they seem to enjoy an affluent lifestyle today. Early in their marriage, as many couples experience, they did not have much money and Liz was frugal and did her best to make do with what they had rather than complain about or focus on what they didn’t have. Again she seems to approach their finances with what’s best for them as a family in mind, investing not only money but time and energy into hearth and home, building a cozy nest she and her sons can’t wait to get home to.

I have never heard Liz voice bad words about her husband or to criticize him. If anything she openly sings his praises and from her attitude toward him I can tell she loves and respects him very much.

I have also never heard her voice an attitude of entitlement. She doesn’t seem to think her marriage is about HER happiness, but all of their happiness. She doesn’t seem to think her husband “owes” her happiness or to put her needs and wants above all else. If anything she seems to take a can do approach and it seems like she focuses on putting in, not on what she’s getting out. She’s willing to work to make her marriage work.

She’s admitted more than once that she needs her husband in her life, and that she would never want to be without him. She doesn’t seem to wonder if she’d be better off without him or on her own, toy with “what if” fantasies, or long for independence and freedom. Liz doesn’t seem to consider divorce an option.

I really admire Liz and am truly fascinated by the details she shares about her marriage. I think Liz is a great example of a women who is getting it right and I think if other ladies adopted some of her thinking and actions, they would find their marriages happier for it.

Liz I hope it won’t embarrass you that I have shared all of this. As you can probably tell, I think a lot of you and I wish you and yours many, many, many happy moments ahead! You have taken a path less traveled and I think it has paid off. I hope my sharing your story will help other women do the same in their own life, to buck the current mantra that putting one’s marriage and family first means a woman will be a doormat or get the short end of the stick. I think as your story shows, it’s quite the opposite. Liz you embody what wedding vows really mean, for richer and poorer, for better or worse, in sickness and health, till death do you part.

These two sayings also remind me of you and your approach:

“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

and

“An excellent wife, who can find? For her worth is far above jewels.”

And thank you Liz, for showing me another way and for inspiring me in my hopes to do the same.

Let those who have ears hear.

Share this:

Like this:

Post navigation

21 thoughts on “Case Study of a Successful Marriage”

You left out the bit Liz relayed about putting on the Kate Upton cat dancing video for her guy, and going downtown. Such behavior inoculates a couple against divorce, and should be filed with the tag #marriagebestpractices.

(I dissent from my own observation, however, as I think Kate Upton is fat.)

Thanks for adding that BV! And yes please if any of the rest of you who know Liz can remember things she’s mentioned that are best marriage practices that I have left out, please do add them as comments! The more, the better. I hope our dear Liz will not mind us singing her praises so 🙂

I just watched the video out of curiosity BV and maybe it was a different one but (and I am not trying to be contrary) you really think she is fat? I would say she is thin overall but her natural build doesn’t seem to have much of a waist despite her not seeming overweight to me otherwise. Maybe that makes her look fat to you? Just out of curiosity, what model/actress would you think has the ideal body as far as weight and shape?

I hope she is a real person, but true, this is the Internet…sigh. Even if she is not real, I still think it’s real good advice, and that women who took such an approach would have happier marriages for it 🙂 And we all fall short of perfect, even I am sure from time to time our dear Liz.

My comment is glib, but I would say she has zero muscle tone, which is why she’s two meals from a pot-belly at a weight of 140. I bet she spends half of the year over 150, then purges and starves for work. That’s a lot for a woman with no muscle. She will never recover from even a single pregnancy (well, I guess there are things that can/will be done in surgery). She’s sexy, sure, when she’s dancing, but between the massive front porch bouncing all over the place, the zero waist, the butt that flows into her back, a 25-30% fat ratio — I really don’t see what the excitement is about other than she has huge boobs. Huge boobs to many men are a turnoff.

I’m not really up on contemporary actresses, but I’d say Ali McGraw and Faye Dunaway, in their prime, were perfect. Paltrow in Shakespeare in Love, the younger Emma Thompson and Meryl Streep, Jodie Foster, Nicole Kidman, Kate Blanchett. I’ve met some of these and they’re generally about 20 pounds lighter than Upton, when working. They also have good bones/facial features.

Just to pre-empt a question, I don’t find women as thin as Bacall was or A. Jolie is today very attractive. Though fashion houses prefer their build to Upton’s, also.

A current girlfriend is 5’8″, 130, and exercises six days a week (seriously exercises: yoga, cardio, and cross fit). She’s 20+ years older than Upton. She’s had three children. You can practically bounce a quarter off her butt. I think she’s way hotter Kate Upton. (She also has a beautiful face, and Upton’s will soon fall apart.)

Yes I can see what you are saying re: muscle tone. I also noticed the top heavy thing and wondered if they are real, or memorex. And yes, that’s a hard figure in clothes, although I could hardly find a image of her in anything but swimwear! And maybe that’s why. With that shape, one either has to wear really form fitting tops (which only emphasizes the top heavy) or if they wear a loose fitting one, it hangs out giving the impression of a pot belly. In any case thanks for clarifying. I worked with a fitness magazine editor and she said once how shocking it can be, the lack of fitness level, models would have. They were thin, and would be demonstrating the “workout” poses in the articles, but she said they often had so little actual muscle or strength they could in real life barely hold the poses for the pics. So yes, I get what you are saying. That said, I wouldn’t mind looking like her (minus the implants) or being her age again…ah how I would do so much different. But then again, I am not bad looking now, although I should work out more. That said, I am so active because of my farm biz, I am actually pretty darn fit and strong. But one could always do better and I met a gal in her 70s the other day who does regular workouts and she was in amazing shape. Fitness pays off in the long run as far as aging well, for sure.

Also, the reason I asked is because I am always curious what men find attractive in women versus what women think men find attractive and how women’s ideas of “beautiful” women can differ greatly from men’s, so that was my hidden motive for asking as well! And your examples clearly show all of that. Maybe that could be a whole other blog post!

Most models are skinny-fat, and subsist on vodka and marlboros. My ex-, who was an all american runner (5’9″, 125-130 when competing) and then a model in NYC used to say about some other girls: “Oh she’s one of those who looks good until she takes her clothes off.” There is no faking good health.

Exercise has enormous benefits for us all (he says, what a genius!). My father looks 20 years younger than his 87 actual, and is taking four university courses to ‘stay busy’. He ran and lifted for 60 years, which saved his life through three heart attacks, while eating properly always. (He has been 6’1″ 170 since he was 30, and thinner before that.) My life of exercise probably saved my life last spring, and will let me get back to semi-normal. We just have to keep making deposits in the exercise bank.

Whatever it is you do, and it sounds like a vineyard or truck farm, is just about the perfect lifestyle as far as I’m concerned. I dislike the gym these days and prefer to just do stuff outdoors. But obviously I have to do the rehab, and that involves the twinkie weights indoors, the tread mills, the pulleys, all the stuff for the geriatric set.

Well, to shorten up what I find attractive, I’ll take a catalog from La Perla over the Playboy Calendar (Upton’s a playboy physique, I guess) all day long. Different strokes. (Probably shouldn’t say that, might be misinterpreted.)

A friend of mine from college was a Playmate of the Month, but by the time they got done changing her makeup and hair, and put her in the stupid costume, I wasn’t sure it was she.

I have to admit that I like, as in admire, Liz. She is a great example of what a life partner should be. However, I have to be self limiting in praise, so as no to go overboard.
I do like linking aviation videos for her to share with her family. Here’s a fun one.

I suppose one doesn’t look good for long if they subsist on vodka and Marlboros! (You can maybe get away with that in youth but that’s no long term strategy, maybe why some models careers are so short?) Some seem to stand the test of time though, like Christie Brinkley, who I am starting to suspect at 60 and not looking any older than 30+ years ago, is a prototype fem bot. Or proof that clean living, good food, and exercise (plus genetics) pay off.

Yes, in addition to freelance writing, I also run a small agritourism business on five acres that requires near endless physical labor from pruning and taking care of plants to hauling around wrought iron tables and chairs from here to there and back again! Plus lots of lifting, hauling, dragging, and so on of vats, bins of produce, and heavy equipment. I joke, as I walk past customers bench pressing a table over my head as I move it, that I don’t need to go to the gym! Although that said, I am far from a bikini or lingerie model, don’t get me wrong! Although at 19 maybe…

I do think I should take up Pilates or yoga or some sort of core strengthening and flexibility workout for added healthy aging insurance.

(I’d be more specific exactly what kind of business it is I run but since so few women do what I do, it might give me away and I like being able to say all this anonymously so I can speak my mind freely w/o worrying about it affecting my writing, biz, or personal life because you never know…)

Speaking of aero vids, here is my favorite, which also happens to profile my current ride. I’ve owned two of these planes, mostly because it’s the only cross country airplane with half-span ailerons, a mildly swept wing, and near-zero dihedral. Pilots know that that means performance over stability. With aircraft, we fly the wing.

Debby could fly an airplane. It is not an easy plane to hammerhead, she does it beautifully. I do most of that stuff, but I draw the line at the snap roll at the loop’s apogee. For that I will have a chute and an available door to exit, i.e., a Pitts. (The Viking is not certified for aerobatics, incidentally.) Debby Gary could really fly. And of course she’s beautiful. The rest of the world can have Kate Upton.

A hammerhead is the maneuver at 1:17. She puts the ship on a vertical line at full power, not deviating foreward or aft: straight up. As the aircraft loses energy and forward motion, and before she starts a tail slide, she slams full left rudder and full right aileron. The plane slowly pivots on the vertical axis and is flown straight down toward the ground. This is easy in an aerobatic plane; it is not so easy in a four place, heavy, touring aircraft. Debbie Gary could fly.